20 November 2012 9:51 PM

Innocent, sick children locked in police cells – why are we not prioritising children in need?

The most shocking headline this weekend was surely that
young children are being locked up in police cells when they are suspected of being
mentally ill at the rate of nearly one child a day. Freedom of Information
requests revealed that 347 children were detained under the Mental Health Act
last year; children who the police or ambulance service thought were so
mentally disturbed that they needed to be taken to a place of safety and
assessed by a psychiatrist. The trouble was that there simply weren’t enough
safe places to which children could be taken, so day after day an acutely
distressed, vulnerable and sick child ended up in a police cell where they were
totally isolated, instead of being in the reassuring presence of a qualified
professional in supportive surroundings.

As with so many other illnesses, early assessment in mental
illness is crucial to finding both the right treatment and for a more rapid
rate of recovery. Imagine your child having a suspected appendicitis, being
distraught in immense pain. The paramedic then tells you that as the local
hospital’s abdominal surgeons are on an “away day” your child will be kept safe
in a police cell in the meantime! (In one of the child cases above where they
ended up in a police cell, mental health professionals were on an away day with
no cover arranged at the local hospital). It’s a ludicrous comparison and
scenario I will admit, such delays in assessment are unthinkable. However
mental illness is just as important as physical; in fact it is in many ways
unhelpful to separate the two as there are usually mental illness symptoms in
physical sickness and physical symptoms in mental illness.

These are not children who have done anything wrong or
criminal, they simply happen to be one of the 10% who at some point in their
childhood suffer with mental illness. Even with a severe episode of ‘psychosis’
where someone loses touch with reality, for 25% of people it’s a one-off
event. Psychosis occurs in 3% of the
population, making it more common than other conditions such as diabetes. Three-quarters
of mental illness develops before we reach 25 years of age and overall mental
illness accounts for about 23% of all disease (compared to cancer at 15% and
heart disease at 16%) but only about 11% of the NHS budget is spent on mental
health.

What this research highlights again today is that we are not
resourcing mental health properly, and children’s services in particular are
failing some of the most needy. The health minister Norman Lamb spoke on the
radio yesterday about picking up with the Home Office on this issue, but he was
getting mixed up with the provision of mental health services for young offenders (also woefully inadequate).
Mental health services for law-abiding young people are a joint responsibility
for the Department of Health and the Department of Communities and Local
Government, and although the health budget has been protected, cuts to Local
Authority budgets have resulted in 53% of Councils cutting their mental health
provision in the last year.

We have plenty of research that helps us predict the demand
for mental healthcare. We also know that across the board, demand on the health
budget is growing. While no politician will admit that we don’t have enough tax
revenues to fund healthcare properly, and decisions on what we prioritise in
the NHS are therefore taken by stealthy rationing, tragic occurrences such as
the incarceration of highly needy children will continue. Surely politicians
are failing some our most vulnerable children if they will not insist that
child mental health is adequately resourced, even if it means that other,
optional services are withdrawn? If there is one worthy task the new Police and
Crime Commissioners can get straight on with, it is ensuring that no innocent,
poorly child ends up in the police cells.

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JULIA MANNING

Julia studied visual science at City University and became a member of the College of Optometrists in 1991. Her career has included being a visiting lecturer in at City University, visiting clinician at the Royal Free Hospital, working with Primary Care Trusts and a Director of the UK Institute of Optometry. She also specialised in diabetes and founded Julia Manning Eyecare, a practice for people with mental and physical disabilities. In 2006 she established 2020health.org, an independent Think Tank for Health and Technology. Research publications have covered public health, telehealth, workability, pricing of medicines, biotechology, NHS reform and fraud.